Wednesday, May 26, 2010

New findings have revealed documents and testimony, which clearly show that on Oct. 16, 1943, it was the intentional lack of a public denunciation by Pope Pius XII against the arrest of the Roman Jews, which saved their lives and enabled their rescue.

Gen. Karl Wolff

We have a signed 1972 deposition of General Karl Wolff, SS commander for Italy and deputy to Heinrich Himmler, which states that in September 1943 Adolf Hitler ordered him to develop a plan to invade the Vatican, kidnap the Pope, seize the Vatican assets, and kill the Roman Curia. This plan was to be carried out immediately.

General Wolff knew that if this invasion were executed, massive riots throughout Europe would ensue, resulting in a military disaster to the German war effort. General Wolff stated that he was successful in convincing Hitler to delay the invasion. This view of a potential military disaster was shared by the military governor of Rome, Major General Rainer Stahel, and German ambassador to the Holy See, Ernst von Weizsäcker.

Pius XII learned of the invasion plan, and likewise believed that the result would be massive riots potentially killing thousands of innocent people and that the Vatican’s neutrality would be breached, thereby enabling German forces to enter all Vatican properties.

Handwritten minutes exist, which state that on Sept. 6, 1943, Pius XII secretly called the cardinals together to tell them the Vatican would be invaded and he would be taken to the north and probably killed. The cardinals were to be prepared to leave for a neutral country immediately, upon the invasion of Vatican territory.

He also signed a letter of resignation,and placed it in his desk.He instructed the cardinals to form a government in exileand to elect a new Pope once they were safe.We have a handwritten letter from the secretary of stateordering the Swiss Guard not to resist invading German forces with firepower,and numerous documents detailing how they were to protect the Vatican Library and museum contents.

Throughout this period, von Weizsäcker sent deceptive positive messages about the Pope to Berlin to calm Hitler, not to justify an order to invade. Some critics of Pius XII have erroneously based their theories of papal complicity and collaboration on these intentionally misleading cables -- what von Weizsäcker’s lieutenant, Albrecht von Kessel, later called "tactical lies."

We have additional testimony from Lieutenant Nikolaus Kunkel, a German officer from the headquarters of the military governor of Rome, which corroborates documented evidence and testimony of exactly how Pius XII directly saved the Roman Jewish community and that they were expecting the invasion order from Berlin any day.

The Arms of Luigi Cardinal Maglione

When the early morning arrests began Oct. 16, 1943, Pius XII was alerted to this by Princess Enza Pignatelli Aragona Cortes. He immediately took multiple steps to force the Germans to stop the arrests. He summoned the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Maglione, and instructed him to launch a vehement protest against the arrests. Cardinal Maglione warned von Weizsacker that same morning, that the Pope could not remain silent as they arrested the Jews under his very windows, in his own diocese. Pius XII then sent his nephew, Carlo Pacelli, to meet with a German sympathizer, Bishop Alois Hudal, to instruct him to write a letter to his German contacts to immediately stop the arrests.

Venerable Pius XII stopped the arrests of Jews in Rome

This too proved ineffective. Pius XII's last effort, the most successful, was to send his close confidant, Salvatorian Superior General Father Pankratius Pfeiffer, to meet directly with the military governor of Rome, General Stahel. Father Pfeiffer warned Stahel that the Pope was going to launch a loud and public protest against these arrests if they were not stopped. Fear that this public protest would result in Hitler's ordering the invasion of the Vatican prompted Stahel to act.

General Stahel immediately telephoned Heinrich Himmler, and fabricated military grounds to stop the arrests. Trusting Stahel's assessment, Himmler advised Hitler to stop the arrests. The order to stop the arrests was issued at noon on Oct. 16, resulting in its implementation by 2 p.m. on the day they began.

This sequence of events was independently confirmed by General Dietrich Beelitz, the liaison officer with Field Marshal Albert Kesselring’s office and Hitler’s command. Beelitz personally heard the Stahel-Himmler conversation. When Stahel’s deception later became known, Himmler punished General Stahel by sending him to the Eastern front.

It was known that the Vatican was infiltrated with spies.The Pope could only send trusted priests and confidants throughout Rome and Italywith verbal and written papal orders to lift cloister,allowing men and women to enter Catholic convents and monasteries,and ordered all ecclesiastical institutions to hide the Jews wherever they could.

Sir Martin John Gilbert, CBE, D. Ltt.

According to famed British historian Sir Martin Gilbert, the Vatican hid thousands of Jews in literally one day (See supporting documents here and here). Once hidden, the Vatican continued to feed and support their Jewish “guests” until Rome’s liberation on June 4, 1944.

Documents from Berlin and the Eichmann Trial in Israel also show that the 8,000 Roman Jews that were to be arrested were not supposed to go to Auschwitz, but were to be sent to the work camp at Mauthausen and held as hostages. This order was later countermanded by persons unknown and 1,007 Jews were sent to Auschwitz to their death. Sadly only 17 survived. While there are those who repeatedly criticize Pius XII for not saving the 1,007, they remain completely silent on his direct actions, which saved this 3,000 year old Jewish community of Rome.

It was recently discovered, in the American archives, thatthe allies had broken the German codesand knew almost a week in advanceof the intended arrests of the Roman Jews.The allies decided not to warn the Romanssince this might alert the Germans to this intelligence breach.This “military decision” left Pope Pius XII alone,without advance notice, to try to end the arrests.

Venerable Pius XII - left alone by the Allies and today made a Scapegoat.

When speaking of Pope Pius XII, the foremost Jewish scholars of the Holocaust in Hungary, Jeno Levai, stated that it was a "particularly regrettable irony that the one person in all of occupied Europe who did more than anyone else to halt the dreadful crime and alleviate its consequences is today made the scapegoat for the failures of others."

* * *

Gary Krupp is the founder of Pave the Way Foundation (PTWF), a non-sectarian organization whose mission is to identify and try to eliminate obstacles between religions and to initiate positive gestures in order to improve interreligious relations.

Monday, May 24, 2010

Benedict XVI says local Churches should always rememberthat the Universal Church precedes them,and conform to her in unity and universality.

"From the very beginning,from the day of Pentecost,she speaks all languages.The universal Church precedes the particular Churches,and the latter must always conform to the formeraccording to a criterion of unity and universality.The Church never remains a prisonerwithin political, racial and cultural confines;she cannot be confused with states nor with federations of states,because her unity is of a different typeand aspires to transcend every human frontier."-Benedict XVI,Pentecost, 2010 -

Benedict XVIThe Roman Pontiff.

So, then, if anyone says thatthe Roman Pontiffhas merely an office of supervision and guidance,and not the full and supreme power of jurisdictionover the whole church,and this not only in matters of faith and morals,but also in those which concernthe discipline and government of the churchdispersed throughout the whole world;

orthat he has only the principal part,but not the absolute fullness, of this supreme power;

orthat this power of his is not ordinary and immediateboth over allandeach of the churchesandover allandeach of the pastorsandfaithful:

let him be anathema.

- Vatican Council, Session 4, Ch.3 First dogmatic constitution on the church of Christ -

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Last night I was surprised to be alerted to the article of Damian Thompson in The Telegraph blog. We had not been asked about this project as I am sure the organisers would state. It is true that our faculties for celebrating the Mass in public are restricted to the islands of Papa Stronsay and Stronsay.

I would like to give our friends and families an update on our process of canonical erection. To be as clear as possible I limit myself to saying that things are not at all easy for us.

Our seminarians, two of whom could be ordained to the priesthood, finish their studies this month and are not able to be ordained because we have not been canonically erected as yet. We ask for your prayers.

For the rest, let me invoke St. Arsenius as quoted by St. Alphonsus. I am thankful for their wisdom particularly in a time when one would like to speak from the heart; and loudly.

Restraint and silence are the better roads.

Devotedly,Fr. Michael Mary, F.SS.R.Rome, 15 May, 2010

Very celebratedis that saying of the holy Abbot Arsenius,which he used to repeat many times,and even sing it,as Sirius in his History says:

“I HAVE OFTEN REPENTED OF HAVING SPOKENBUT NEVER OF HAVING KEPT SILENCE.”

Friday, May 14, 2010

Before I walk among you carrying the monstrance containing Jesus present in the Eucharist, I would like to offer you a word of encouragement and hope, a word which I extend to all those following us on television and radio, and to those without even such means, but who are united to us by the deeper bonds of the Spirit, that is, in faith and prayer.

My dear brother and sister, in the eyes of God you are “worth so much to God that he himself became man in order to suffer with man in an utterly real way -- in flesh and blood -- as is revealed to us in the account of Jesus's Passion. Hence in all human suffering we are joined by one who experiences and carries that suffering with us; hence con-solatio is present in all suffering, the consolation of God's compassionate love -- and so the star of hope rises” (Spe Salvi, 39). With such hope in your heart, you can leave behind the quicksand of illness and death and stand on the firm rock of divine love. In other words, you can overcome the feeling of the uselessness of suffering which consumes a person from within and makes him feel a burden to those around him when, in reality, suffering which is lived with Jesus assists in the salvation of your brethren.

How is this possible? Because the spring of divine power rises in the midst of human weakness. This is the paradox of the Gospel. Therefore, the divine Master, instead of explaining the reasons for suffering, preferred to call everyone to follow him, saying: Take up your cross and follow me (cf. Mk 8:34). Come with me. With your suffering, take part in the work of salvation which is realized through my suffering, by means of my cross. As you gradually embrace your own cross, uniting yourself spiritually to my cross, the salvific meaning of suffering will be revealed to you. And in suffering, you will discover an interior peace and even spiritual joy.

Pray the Rosary

Dear friends who are sick, welcome the call of Jesus who will shortly pass among you in the Most Blessed Sacrament, and entrust to him every setback and pain that you face, so that they become -- according to his design -- a means of redemption for the whole world. You will be redeemers with the Redeemer, just as you are sons in the Son. At the cross … stands the mother of Jesus, our mother.-Pope Benedict XVI tothe sick

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

The Holy Father was asked if it is possible to see in the Fatima message an allusion to the sufferings that the Church is going through today.Benedict XVI replied that what can be discovered again today in Our Lady's message from Fatima is the "passion" that the Church is experiencing, and that "is reflected in the person of the Pope.""The attacks on the Pope and the Church do not just come from outside, but the sufferings of the Church come precisely from within the Church, from the sin that is in the Church. This has always been known, but today we see it in a really terrifying way: The greatest persecution of the Church does not come from external enemies, but is born from the sin in the Church.

"And the Church, therefore, has the profound need to learn penance again, to accept purification, to learn on one hand forgiveness, as well as the need for justice. Forgiveness does not replace justice."

Pilgrims walking on their knees in penance.

A penitential pilgrim at Fatima crawling along Lucy's Mile.

"And the Church, therefore, has the profound need to learn penance again, to accept purification, to learn on one hand forgiveness, as well as the need for justice. Forgiveness does not replace justice."